As it turns out, sometimes that bites you. In this case, I saw pictures of Earl [Mills], and...I actually met him. He was quite old at the time, but he had this sort of curly red hair, so we did that in the film. I got a perm and had red hair, and... It was a mess.

It seemed like an interesting movie [Independence Day], and I thought I had a take on the part that was going to be unique. That doesn't happen to me very often.

I did learn a lot from [ Felicia Day], though, and I was able to usurp some of her talent.

I got Greg Aronowitz, who does [ Felicia Day] sets, to do mine as well, and he's just amazing. He can work miracles with nothing.

I wanted to look right. I remember a review - a very positive one - in The New York Times that said I was so good in the role [Earl Mills] that I "even managed to overcome a terrible red wig." I wanted to write her and tell her about the agony I'd gone through with the perm, but I thought better of it.

And the basic sort of thrust of Star Trek being about equality and tolerance and things I believe in deeply.

It was kind of an amazing class. I went to the Strasberg Institute in New York for a little while after I got there, and I've never seen anybody who was in any of my classes there ever again. I mean, that's not to say they didn't become somebody. I'm not sure. I mean, Sam Jackson could've been in my class, for all I remember.